North Snow, South Sea, Mountain of the East
by Pergjithshme
Summary: Two young women from our world end up on the Quest to Take Back Erebor. Thing is, they have never met each other. Feelings regarding various Dwarves is cause for conflict as well. Rated T for thematic content and language. No one who authored this fanfiction owns any licensed products/things/titles/characters/etc. mentioned in this fanfiction.
1. Chapter 1

Agatha Clarke pulled her coat around her as tightly as she could. Icy wind whipped her hair and stung her cheeks. Agatha was very, very frightened.

Another blast from the wind nearly knocked her over. Agatha was starting to realize that it was a very poor decision to leave the building. A very, very, horribly, awfully poor decision. There was no way she could drive in this storm, and she was starting to realize that only a miracle would take her to her car.

An even stronger gust of wind threw her against something—or something against her. _Hard_. The last thing she remembered was a hollow _thunk_ against her head before the white of the storm was replaced by black.

_**Author's notes: Hey, sorry this chapter is so short! It's more of an intro, I guess. The next will be short too and then they should get longer. :) **_

_**Also, this is my first romance story! Exciting, huh? :D**_

_**EDIT: Wow, I found an embarrassing typo. It's fixed now.**_


	2. Chapter 2

_**Author's notes: Hey, yeah, sorry last chapter was so short. Again, this one will be too. And again, it's more of an intro chapter.**_

It was a pretty wild day to be doing this, especially alone, but Clarisse McDowell liked to live on the edge. She paddled her surfboard out. The wind was whipping the waves into a frenzy. Her hair, too. Clarisse spit out the lock of blue hair that had found its way into her mouth.

Ah! There it was! She saw it building, the biggest wave she had ever seen while surfing. She readied herself. Wait…wait…_now!_ Clarisse stood up and began to ride the biggest wave of her life. Both the sky and the ocean were grey, and the wind was wild, but Clarisse had never felt more free.

But even the most talented can fail. And for Clarisse, it was one long, strung out moment…she lost her center of gravity and was unable to regain it…she fell…her surfboard, propelled by the power of the sea, bearing down on her…

The last thing she remembered was a feeling of extreme disappointment before her head collided with the surfboard and she felt no more.

_**Yeah, short, I know. Sorry. :/**_


	3. Chapter 3

_**Author's notes: Hey, longer chapter! And canon characters! Go me! **_

"Quit doing that! You'll make us late!"

Kili stopped at the top of one of the Shire's small hillocks, looking down at his brother. Then, he lay flat on the ground and rolled back down. He jumped to his feet with a grin. "Oh come on. You know you want to."

Fili gave him a look before sprinting up another hill. Kili shouted with laughter and ran after him.

They made their way towards Mr. Boggin's house but slowly, so much did their path twist and turn as they played. They played innocently, rambunctiously, and happily, as any brothers might, finding themselves alone in sweet grasses and sweet air, with no one to see them not acting like the adults they technically were.

They had been going on in this manner for some time, when upon cresting another hill, Fili stopped dead. "Kili," he said simply, all trace of laughter gone from his voice. Kili ran up to be with his brother, his own playful mood fled with the tone of his brother's voice. "Look."

Kili looked into the valley that his brother indicated. There were two bodies lying by a shallow stream that wound merrily through the hills, blissfully unaware of the serious nature of the situation.

Without a word, Kili scrambled down the hillside. With a soft shout, Fili scrambled after him.

Fili reached the bottom of the hill shortly after his brother, who was already within yards of the bodies. "Kili," he called softly. Kili looked back at him. "Be careful." Kili nodded his assent.

When Fili reached the bodies, Kili was kneeling in between them. "They're both alive," he informed his brother.

"That's good."

"I wonder where they're from." Kili marveled at their strange clothing.

"What I want to know is how they got here," Fili replied.

"Do you think they are harmful?"

"Not in this state." Fili chuckled slightly. "Weapons?"

Kili briefly patted the figure in the long black coat. "None." The other figure needed no frisking. Her clothes, of a material neither Dwarf had ever seen, were skin tight, and her legs were bare. Clearly, no weapons. Fili averted his eyes when he realized he was staring.

"She needs trousers."

"Aye," Kili agreed. "My spares are decently clean." He rummaged through his pack, which miraculously had stayed bound to his side despite all the tumbling he had undergone that day. He pulled out said trousers. "Here they are!" He looked at Fili, at the woman, and back at Fili. "Um…" He had forgotten that they would be the ones to put them on her. From the look on Fili's face, he was looking forward to it no more than he was.

Once they were through, it was safe to say that neither brother ever wanted to dress an unconscious female ever again. Their cheeks were both hot from the embarrassment of the process.

"How long do we sit here before we keep going?"

Fili looked at the sun. "Let's give them a quarter hour more. If they do not wake up by that period, we shall carry them and be on our way."

Kili nodded and looked back at the two women, lying there on the ground. They looked like Men, but were too small. He wondered if they were Hobbits. But the three Hobbits he had seen had huge feet and no boots. He didn't know for sure how common it was that Hobbit had big, bare feet, but these had none. The coated one had on boots, and the other had clearly small feet—at least in proportion to Hobbits.

"It's time." Fili's voice interrupted him from his musings. "I'll take this one." Fili bent down and picked up the coated figure, leaving Kili with the other.

_**Okay so yes this was a short chapter but still longer than the last.**_

_**And now that we're getting into the actual story, I'll ask you to review. This is my first serious story under the Hobbit listing, and I'd like to know what you think so far! Comments? Critiques? Better or worse than my humor fics? Which do you like better?**_


	4. Chapter 4

_**Author's notes: To skip the replies and get to the story, just go straight down to the normal text.**_

_**fairness52: Oh, uh, thank you! :) Glad you liked it!**_

Fili and Kili had been walking for another hour or so when Kili stopped with a gasp.

Fili looked back at his brother with a worried expression. "What is it?"

Kili stared at him. "I think she's waking up!" His gaze turned back to the female in his arms. Fili hurried to his brother's side. He was there to see the tightly-clad female moan and stir, before lapsing once again into unconsciousness. They jostled her a bit in an effort to fully wake her up, but she stubbornly remained asleep.

It was night when they arrived at the hobbit-hole. Bilbo Baggins hurried down his corridor, hoping beyond hope that the visitors were some blissfully normal people, rather than more Dwarves to add to the two that had already invaded.

When he opened his door to see the Dwarves a part of him had suspected, another part was struck with the sudden urge to slam the door in their faces, exclaiming that they couldn't come in; that they had the wrong house. Indeed, Bilbo would have done so at the slightest provocation, had he not seen the bundles in the Dwarves' arms.

Having seen said bundles, Bilbo immediately flung the door open wide. "Come this way." He ushered the dwarves to one of the guest bedrooms, and instructed them to lay the women on the beds. "What happened to them?" asked Bilbo as he bustled around gathering blankets, pillows, and various other supplies. On a run to the kitchen, he had hurriedly explained the situation to Balin and Dwalin, and the older Dwarves had seemed content to stay put where they were. _And what _are_ they? _Bilbo added silently.

"We have no idea," Fili admitted as he carefully laid his charge on one of the beds. Across the room, Kili did the same on the other. "We found them like this. She—" Fili gestured to the girl with colored streaks in her otherwise brown hair. "—started to wake up, but fell once again into unconsciousness."

Sounds of commotion floated in the open door from the other end of the smial, but while Bilbo looked somewhat perturbed, Kili and Fili were as unruffled as though they knew exactly what was causing those sounds.

Before a flustered Hobbit could do any investigating however, a tall Wizard cloaked all in grey poked his head in the door. "Ah, Bilbo. Balin told me I might find you here." He entered the room and nodded at the two young women unconscious on the beds. "So these are the unexpected guests?"

"Yes…" Bilbo said slowly, frowning at Gandalf's use of the term "unexpected guests." All of the guests had been unexpected to him, but Gandalf apparently had had a mite more information than the actual host of said guests.

"Hm." Gandalf looked them over, and softly muttered some foreign sounding words over them. Once he was done, he turned to Bilbo and the two Dwarves who yet stayed with the girls they had rescued. "I have done all I can. Why don't you go join the others? I shall sit with them."

All three started to protest.

"Fili and Kili, why don't you introduce Bilbo to the rest of your companions? The girls will be fine."

Reluctantly, the two Dwarves and the lone Hobbit left. Gandalf carefully balanced himself on a small stool and pulled out his pipe. The Wizard mumbled softly, "I wonder…" as he surveyed the sleeping girls, and the rest was lost to the silence of breathing and the puffing of a pipe.

_**It will pick up soon, I promise; Agatha and Clarisse are waking up the next chapter. :) **_

_**And now, I shall ask you to review. ;) **_


	5. Chapter 5

_**Author's notes: Heads up, the bad words start coming into play this chapter.**_

_**Also, thanks to Adeleidhis for some brilliant suggestions. :)**_

The first thing Clarisse realized when she came to consciousness was that her head hurt. A lot. The next was that she was in a bed, which struck her as a bit odd, and that the lights were low and warm, and that there was an odd smell in the air. She forced her eyes open, ignoring the pain in her head in favor of discovering what exactly was going on.

The first thing that met Clarisse's eyes was a ceiling. It was curved, painted a warm golden brown with exposed beams. Altogether, it was unlike any ceiling she had ever seen before in her life. "Where the hell am I?" Clarisse groaned. There was also some thin…wispy…smoke… Clarisse slowly propped herself up on her elbows in an effort to find the source of the smoke. Upon finding it, she shot up quickly to a sitting position, regretting it a millisecond later as her head screamed protest. She gritted her teeth with the pain, and once the waves passed, yelled at the old man who sat watching her and smoking a pipe.

"WHO THE HELL ARE YOU?!"

Gandalf, unperturbed, exhaled a smoke ring. "I am Gandalf."

Clarisse stared at him, open-mouthed. "What the—"

"I believe you have been the victim of an exceedingly strange set of circumstances."

"What the _hell_?"

Gandalf puffed on his pipe.

Okay, so clearly the crazy old man was right in that there was certainly some weird stuff going on. Clarisse could see that much. Ceilings weren't normally curved like this, there weren't usually pipe-smoking old coots, and there _certainly_ wasn't a lack of electricity in normal California hospitals, where she should have ended up considering the last thing she remembered was her surfboard crashing down on her head.

Considering the fact that she had been _alone_ on the beach when all that happened, Clarisse suddenly realized she should be glad she woke up at all. That in itself was more frightening that waking up in such an absurd place. Was this the afterlife? Clarisse didn't believe in such things…did she? A hallucination? No. She'd hallucinated before, and this was nothing like it. Then…what…what _was_ it? Governmental conspiracy? Like they'd do it on her. Still, the weird old man was twice as big as he should be. Sciencey thing?

Clarisse's head hurt too much for this. She got out of the bed. She noticed that in addition to her swimsuit and long-sleeved rash guard, she was wearing a pair of pants. They were made of a rough but sturdy fabric, and were altogether too big for her. She cast a suspicious glance at the Gandalf character. "How did I get these?"

For a moment, Gandalf enigmatically puffed on his pipe. Then, "you will find the answers you seek," with a nod to the open door. He returned to his pipe.

Clarisse started for the door, but her passage was arrested by Gandalf speaking once more. "Before you go…" _Why won't he just say whatever he wants to say like a normal person instead of stringing it out…like…like… _Clarisse didn't know the word she was looking for, but Gandalf underlined her point by taking a long break from whatever he had been saying to puff on his pipe.

Clarisse decided she hated pipes, and that one in particular.

"Do you know who she is?" Gandalf, who had finally finished his sentence, gestured towards the other bed with his pipe.

Clarisse had only been vaguely aware of other furniture in the room; she had been occupied with a splitting headache, strange circumstances, and a _very _strange old man. She looked over at the indicated bed. She saw a young woman, about her age, lying on it, brown hair splayed around an exceedingly pale face. As she looked at her, Clarisse was sure of two things: that something dreadful had happened to her, and that she had never seen her before in her life.

"What the—" she whirled around to face Gandalf. "Did you do this?!" she demanded.

Gandalf answered the accusation unperturbed. "If you are referring to the fact that she has been given the best of care considering the circumstances, then you are correct; I did help. If you are referring to the fact that she is unconscious, the answer is no." He quirked an enormously bushy eyebrow. "But you do know her?"

"No," Clarisse answered honestly. "I've never seen her before in my life."

"Hmmm," Gandalf mused. "We were hoping you could cast some light on the situation. You were found in the same circumstances." He leaned back and puffed on the pipe. "Well, I suppose you can go now."

Clarisse was torn. She was worried about this strange woman, but she was also anxious to explore this strange place and find some answers. This Gandalf character didn't seem about to provide any.

Speaking of Gandalf, he seemed to have everything—whatever it was—well under control. She made up her mind, and, with one more hard look at Gandalf, headed out the open door.

Now that she was paying attention, she realized that the soft murmuring in the background was the sound of voices. The obvious thing here was to follow them to their source.

She crept along the twisting hallways as softly as she could. As she went, she observed that it didn't seem like a prison or any sort of containment facility. It seemed like—a home. There were books, and maps, and pictures, and trinkets. A lace doily. A finely-carved box. A beautifully painted dish hung on the wall. A chest with a quilt and pillow resting atop it. She stopped to look closely at a portrait.

It wasn't a photograph, more of a drawing. It depicted three faces, probably a family for all counts. A mother, a father, and a child. Clarisse thought it was a boy, but she couldn't be sure. It was too young to be sure. All of them had wildly curling hair, covering…Clarisse leaned in closer. The artist had certainly taken liberties. The ears—or what she could see of them—looked huge and pointed.

A roar of laughter interrupted Clarisse from her musings. She jerked back from the picture and looked hastily about her. The corridor was as yet empty, but the voices sounded very close. After a brief internal battle, Clarisse continued on her way.

Soon enough, she was right next to where the people undoubtedly were. The voices were bordering on impossibly loud, and Clarisse could see shadows flying on the wall across her. She debated on rounding the corner. So many things could happen to her if she did…but then there was Gandalf, who seemed harmless enough, and the place was home-like and well-kept. She hedged her bets and stepped into the light.

_**I lied. I'm a big, fat liar. Agatha is still asleep.**_

_**Also another cliffhanger. Yes, I know I am an *insert insult of choice here*.**_

_**Feel free to yell at me in the review box below.**_


	6. Chapter 6

_**Author's notes: An even longer chapter than any of my previous ones, as requested by Momotte!**_

Clarisse was greeted by a bread roll full in the face, to which she responded with a stifled yelp. The roll itself, which she caught as it bounced off her nose, was soft enough, but the force with which it was launched was cause for some pain.

The room went silent, and what seemed like a thousand pairs of eyes turned towards her. (Clarisse later discovered that there had been, in fact, thirteen pairs of eyes.) Clarisse reminded herself that they were probably not harmful…and if they were, it was a very bad idea to show fear. "Uh, hi."

Kili had thrown his roll as hard as he could at Nori. Unfortunately, in his excitement, his aim gone horribly wrong, and instead of hitting his fellow dwarf, it sailed towards the open entrance on the opposite side of the room. Kili thought no more of the toss gone bad until the open doorway spoke.

Well, it was more of a yelp. And it wasn't really the entrance, it was the young woman he had carried. Kili knew it was because brown hair streaked with blue wasn't all that common, plus she was still wearing his spare trousers.

And he was not the only one who had noticed. The whole room had fallen silent at the sound of the doorway's unexpected speech. The woman, seeing their eyes upon her, opened her mouth in greeting. "Uh, hi."

Kili grinned. "You're awake!"

And with that, the table erupted into cheers and halloos. Among the greetings—which came in various levels of enthusiasm—she was invited to sit and join them in their meal. Well, some were invitations, others were commands that would brook no argument. A man with the wildly curling hair Clarisse remembered from the portrait fetched her a stool, and she found herself seated between a young man with his straw-brown hair cut into a very untasteful bowlcut and an older man with gray hair braided in a very elaborate way one did not often see in elderly hairstyles.

Between the older man, who introduced himself as Dori, and the curly-haired man, Clarisse was fussed over for quite a while before she managed to get a word in edgewise, let alone a bite.

The bite was more important, honestly. Until she saw the food, Clarisse was unaware of how hungry she was. She ate quickly, and tried to piece together the names of these over-enthusiastic bikers.

The one to her right, with the bowl-cut, turned out to be Ori. The two handsome ones were Kili and Fili. _Pity I couldn't have been seated between them. _Her head hurt too much to learn the rest of the names at the moment; she knew her seatmates and the handsome ones, and that was enough.

Ori glanced shyly at the woman next to him before staring into his plate. He wasn't around females that much, and certainly never around one like her. He looked at her again, longer this time. Her hair had blue in it, for Mahal's sake! And not blue as in blue beads or ribbons woven in, but her hair—her actual _hair_—was _blue_. Not all of it; the rest was brown. But there were streaks of blue! Blue! He stared at her once more, this time not at her hair, but the strange clothes she was wearing. What an exotic material! He had never seen clothes that cast that particular sheen, or were…Ori turned bright red as he realized that the clothes in question were skin-tight.

He didn't look at her again, but continued to think about her. The brothers of the line of Durin (the only one's that existed in Ori's lifetime, that is) had related to all those at the table that they had found some peculiar women in dire straits, and brought them to the house of the Hobbit. Other than that, they really didn't elaborate. There were some unexpected guests who would need some care, and beyond that they knew little. It had been enough information for the time being, but now there was the opportunity to learn more. Ori's fingers itched to open his journal and record everything about this strange set of circumstances, but did nothing. He wished to ask her her name, but did not dare, still too embarrassed. She had been too busy eating to notice him staring, but still! How embarrassing!

Fortunately, Kili soon helped fill in some of the missing blanks. He had watched in awe as the woman began to fill her stomach. No beardless woman _he_ had ever seen could eat like that. Then again, she was far from common, if only evidenced by the strange way he had met her.

Only it wasn't really a meeting; he didn't even know her name. Speaking of which…Kili leaned in front of Ori, tapped her shoulder, and grinned at her. He'd noticed that ladies of the beardless variety tended to respond better when he smiled. "What's your name?"

She swallowed the bite she had been chewing and smiled in response. "Clarisse. Clarisse McDowell."

What a weird name. Kili was about to remark on it when Fili, recognizing (after years of experience) the look of someone who is about to say something socially improper, cut him off. "I'm glad to see you finally awake," he smiled.

Clarisse smiled back.

By this time, the rest of the table had fallen mostly silent, anxious to learn more about this stranger. Ori's fingers were itching like mad for his journal and a pen.

Clarisse noticed the hush and figeted a bit uncomfortably. "So…you guys, um, rescued me. Uhm, thanks. I really appreciate it."

An old man with an impressive white beard nodded towards Kili and Fili. "The lads there were the ones who found you."

_Wow, handsome prince to the rescue much?_ Clarisse turned to the "lads." _Strange term, but okay. _"Well, thanks guys." They smiled bashfully and started the "oh no, it was nothing" gig. She cut them off. "No, seriously. I think I'd be dead right now if it weren't for you guys." Their faces, like those of everyone else around, were solemn and even more alert than before. No one cut her off, so Clarisse continued on. "How did you see me, anyway? Were you riding by and saw me wipe out or something?"

The brothers exchanged glances. Kili piped up. "Walking, actually."

Fili joined in. "And when we found you, you were already"—Fili guessed "wipe out" was a strange term for passing out—"unconscious."

Clarisse, for her part, didn't remember seeing anyone else, but she wasn't going to complain.

"Anyway, seriously you guys, thanks. I don't think I could ever pay you back for this, but if there's any way I could ever—"

Fili cut her off. "There's really no need. We were happy to help."

Murmurs of agreement came up from all around the table. No dissent. Looking around, she saw that none of them appeared to want anything from her. Anything at all. It was as though it hadn't even crossed their minds. These bikers were serious gentlemen, Clarisse decided. Didn't see their type often in California. She was glad she had decided to trust them.

"Well, thank you again, for rescuing me and bringing me here." Clarisse paused. "Um, where _is _here?"

The curly-haired man stepped forth. "Ah, yes. This would be my home." He held out his hand, and Clarisse shook it. "Bilbo Baggins."

"Thank you for taking me in."

"My pleasure. My door is always open to visitors in need." It seemed to Clarisse that those last two words had a touch of annoyance, but she couldn't begin to think why. She must have been imagining it.

"Your home is very beautiful." And it was, in its own peculiar way. "I've never seen anything like it."

Bilbo seemed to relax a little bit. "Oh, thank you. It's been in the family for decades." He looked about him and puffed up his chest somewhat self-importantly. "Yes, Bag End is a lovely place to live."

_Bag End? _Clarisse had never heard of it. She wondered if it was a town, or perhaps a local nickname for a town.

A harrumph from the open doorway interrupted her musings. She looked up and saw Gandalf. Well, half of him, anyway. He was poking his head into the dining room. "Ah, I see most of the company is gathered." He bent through the doorway and a pale young woman in a long black coat followed after him. "We now lack only one."

_**The mention of beads and ribbons being woven into the hair is somewhat inspired by "To Become a Dwarf," by Akiluna.**_

_**I had something else to say but forgot. Oh yes.**_

_**I noticed as I was updating my last chapter that this story has been added to a community, "Maidens and Mayhem in Middle-Earth." Thank you to whoever did this! (My guess is TrollingTauriel. Thanks!)**_

_**And please review! **_


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